


Resinous

by KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [26]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Danger, Gen, Home Invasion, Implied Stalking, Video & Computer Games, threat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: What's so great about fear?
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648339
Kudos: 3
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Resinous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KawaiiCinnamonroll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KawaiiCinnamonroll/gifts).



> Quick note: Chelsaline is 11. Ode is 26. Momma Diana is 35.
> 
> Ode is trying to be a responsible babysitter.

“…but yeah, most of the game sucks.”

Chelsaline hums and feels the vibration move through her cheek up Ode’s arm. For as tense and high strung as the scene playing out on the television screen is, Ode herself is still and relaxed. The dark controller sits on her idle, loose fingers.

The music in the background drops a heavy, thrumming base for a beat.

“Most of it?” Chelsaline echoes.

“Yeah. Except for this part. I like this part.”

Chelsaline supposes it’s good she’s watching this part, then—even if some part of _her_ is incredibly aware that her mother would _not approve_ of her watching this game. Or perhaps it’s knowing her mother would disapprove that proportionally increases her anticipation, makes her _more_ excited to watch it. With another soft, curious hum, she pulls her socked feet up onto the edge of the couch and curls closer into Ode’s side.

A strange creature appears on the screen: skeletal and wane. Pale and sickly. Its round face is split apart at the mouth, where its two rows of teeth look rotten and blackened. It crouches over the giant chandelier in the center of the giant cabin living room as another of its kind crawls around the underside.

Chelsaline’s nose scrunches up. Her chest feels cold and hot all at once. “Ew. Gross. What is that?”

“That? Those are the monsters you’re supposed to be escaping.”

“They kind of look like babies.”

Ode laughs. The sound travels down her arm and makes Chelsaline’s cheek bounce. She smiles to herself and sits upright, crossing her arms over her chest and squeezing them in the space between her front and her thighs. 

“Oh man, Chelsie. You’re a riot.” Ode wipes at her face. “But you’re not wrong, yeah.”

Finally, Chelsaline feels cool enough to stick her socked feet up on the coffee table. She slips lower on the couch until her chin tucks into her collar. “So what’s so great about this part, anyway?”

As Ode begins to press with her thumb in quick-time events, she distractedly answers, “It’s the tension, I think. Like, all game long you operate under the subconscious assumption—like everyone does—that the home, the cabin, is a safe haven, right? And then you get to a moment like this, at the climax of it all and—ah, damn, don’t look, Chelsie—” She says as a monster catches one of the characters and thrusts their clawed hand straight through his chest. Chelsaline’s eyes grow wide at the blood under its nails. “—but you get to a moment like this where all of a sudden, your little secret ‘haven’ is under attack, so now your objective changes. You have to get out. It’s like, wicked cool.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. It gets your blood pumpin’, doesn’t it? Really makes the panic rise.”

Ode hasn’t once looked away from the screen yet. Her brow is furrowed, mouth in a thin line, while the rest of her body is still and lax. 

Chelsaline watches Ode out of the corner of her eye. She pulls her feet back from the coffee table, pulls her knees up to obscure her view of the television screen. Her hands wrap around her ankles, fingernails tapping against the fuzzy blue coils. 

_What’s so great about fear?_

* * *

It’s 9:32 when Mom picks her up from Ode’s apartment. The night is dark velvet, all shadows. Chelsaline watches the overhead highway lights as they pass by the window and loses herself in counting them to take her mind off of the images from Ode’s game that keep replaying over and over again, things she hadn’t known could happen to a human body.

“You okay, love?”

“Yeah.”

They’re home now, but neither Chelsaline or her mother make a move to get out of the car. Her mom turns off the ignition and tosses her key in her bag. “Well, I’m going to get the mail. If you want to head on in, you can.”

Chelsaline nods. The car door opens with a thick, pleasant _click._

The mudroom isn’t disturbed. Everything’s where it was when they left this morning; it usually is. Chelsaline toes off her rainboots and leaves them in a heap in front of her cubby. She hangs up her jacket and pads into the kitchen. 

Her eyes fall upon the desk against the left wall: it's one of the built-ins that has the same quartz-like countertop as the rest of the kitchen except it’s sitting next to the refrigerator and Chelsaline doesn’t quite know whoever decided that was a good idea. Except maybe it’s a good spot for a landline, so she doesn’t question it too much.

She only questions the overturned frame.

The garage door opens. “Chelsie? You just gonna stand there in the dark?”

Chelsaline’s head snaps back around. Her black curls pat against her cheek when she spins around a second time and flicks on the lights. She hurries to the desk and puts the frame upright.

She counts the pad of sticky notes.

“Aaaaaaugh, I’m starving.” Cupboards open and close. The sounds of her mother shuffling through the kitchen are easy enough to tune out the higher in her numbers she gets. “If I heat up some mozzie sticks, you’ll help me eat ‘em, right?”

Fifty-seven.

Chelsaline’s breath catches somewhere in the base of her throat. She looks up. “Y-yeah. Sure.”

“Great.”

Chelsaline yanks open the right drawer underneath the countertop desk and lifts the overfilled pen organizer. She pulls free her post-it from yesterday and grabs a clicky pen from the _O Canada_ mug. 

~~_121_ ~~

~~_106_ ~~

~~_85_ ~~

She scribbles underneath a new, shaky 57 as the oven beeps and does a happy jingle behind her. Her mother sighs.

_What’s so great about fear?_

Chelsaline closes the drawer and returns the pen. “Actually, Mom, I’m not that hungry. I think I’m gonna go upstairs.”

“Okay.” 

She ignores the concern in her mother’s tone that twists her stomach and flights across the shiny floorboards and to the entryway. Her feet thump up the carpeted steps two at a time and when she reaches the upper landing, Chelsaline rounds the railing post and hurries to the master bedroom.

_Which one is it this time? Which one?_

It’s not the bureau mirror across from her mother’s bed. Not the TV that’s in the fake wardrobe. Chelsaline scurries for the bathroom and turns on the light.

There, across the mirror in a spotty, brownish red, surrounded by small yellow post-its that all bear either the same phone number or an angry, impatient message above the dual sinks: _I’M WAITING, DIANA_

Her mother’s lipstick is smushed and crumbling, with bits and pieces pressed into the sweeping, pale peach counter between the two sinks. Chelsaline finds its cap near the base of the toilet and shoves it back on. She bangs her knee against the edge of the counter when she climbs up its surface too fast. After she picks off all the notes and stuffs them in her pocket alongside the ruined lipstick, she grabs a rag and yanks on the faucet. 

_What’s so great about fear?_

Her hands try not to shake as she wipes the words away. Under the beadlets of water her scrubbing leaves behind, it’s hard to see her own brown reflection. But it’s fine. She doesn’t want to look, anyway. She doesn’t want to give anyone or anything the chance to be behind her, so she pretends the possibility doesn’t exist.

_He_ doesn’t exist.

_What’s so great about fear when I’m terrified all the damn time, Ode?_

**Author's Note:**

> <3 thank you SO MUCH Happy for the BTH Bingo request, who wanted to see "Home Invasion" + my bby girl Chelsaline!! <3 It's been a while since I've gotten to go back to these to try and finish them (I only have THREE LEFT on both fluff bingo & bad things happen bingo cards) and it's an even greater delight to be able to fulfill these prompts with my own OC's man...
> 
> TECHNICALLY I wanted to get this done for Twitter's OCeptember, but I think it's a stretch to think this one applies to the "About the OC's world" prompt for today (it kind of does?? I guess?? considering it gives us information about the situation Chelsaline and her mom are in??) but yeah i won't try to tie it completely to that prompt and just...post it anyway. for OCeptember.
> 
> if you like my kids, first of all--THANK YOU--second of all, check out my [tw](https://twitter.com/krisseywrites) where there's lots more content with them in their ORIGINAL verse!!


End file.
